Cabrit Sans Cor
by Ookami-chan
Summary: “Why go to the trouble to capture us only to let us go so easily?”
1. Abyssus Abyssum Invocat

Standard Disclaimer: Inuyasha and all belong to Rumiko Takahashi…

A/N: This is actually an idea that hatched a while ago, and turned into a gift fic for Dev. I just didn't get around to posting it with the hospital appointments and holiday stuff that's been going on this month. Ah well… First half of the two-part piece…

_-Cabrit Sans Cor-_

"Just like that?" her disbelief was just as obvious in her voice as it was in her expression.

"Just like that," Naraku affirmed smoothly. He dipped his head to her ostensibly in respect, unblinking eyes never once releasing her gaze. "You may not believe me, but I assure you, my dear, I have found myself in the mood to be… indulgent. You and your friends are free to leave without interference from me."

Kagome's eyes narrowed on his face, searching for any sign of trickery as she looked up at the dangerous hanyou standing motionless barely an arm's length away. After several moments in the silent stalemate, she finally tore her gaze away from him. Finding the others where they struggled against Naraku's unnatural bindings holding them in place against the courtyard wall. Every sense, every instinct she'd gained since this mess had begun was screaming to turn and run to them. To set them free and get as far away from the castle as possible before whatever bizarre mood had taken hold of Naraku wore off. But even as she had taken a single step in their direction, her mouth was forming words she had never intended to say.

Her feet refused to move even a single step away from the self-made youkai. And even she could hear the damning whisper of curiosity echo back to her off the compound walls, "It… What was the point?"

Naraku's brows rose quizzically to illustrate his desire for clarification. "The point?"

"You could kill us all here and be done with all of this," Kagome murmured. Part of her could scarcely believe the words that were coming out of her mouth. Yet she couldn't seem to bring a halt to the confused questions. Her hands curled into fists to hide the way they shook as she twisted back to face him. Forcing herself to stand confidently as she met his subtly condescending stare. "Why go to the trouble to capture us only to let us go so easily?"

Those intense scarlet eyes flashed under her stare. He made no secret in indulging himself in a slow, thorough sweep of her body before steadily meeting her gaze. A smile tugged up the corner of his lips. "Why indeed…"

Kagome almost backed down. Her arms curled around her torso in an instinctive, fruitless effort to shield herself from the intensity of Naraku's attention. From the sensation of having her soul stripped bare for his eyes. Her wrist bumped against the tiny vial resting beneath her shirt, shaking her free of the frozen hypnosis. Struggling to bolster her courage, she flatly pointed out, "You haven't asked me about the last shard."

Naraku made a faintly disapproving sound as he closed the distance between them with a few leisurely steps. "Now, now, my dear miko… If all I had wanted was the jewel, don't you realize by now that I could have had it? My interests are more diverse than that."

"Don't patronize me, Naraku, I _can_ feel it." Kagome's chin kicked up in a show of bravery that she was far from feeling. "Everything you've done. Everyone you've killed and betrayed... it's all been for the jewel. Why lie about it?"

"The thought is furthest from my mind at the moment," Naraku chuckled softly. He pressed his hand to his heart and bowed his head in a gesture of sincerity. "For now, there is just one small question I have for you, miko. That is, if you feel so inclined to suffer my curiosity now that you are here."

Kagome stared at him silently for a moment. Unaware that she had taken a step back, shaking her head as she whispered out, "You can't... You can't possibly be serious. A question… a _question?_ You did all this, tricked them -_tortured_ them- and used them to demand I come here like this. Just so you can ask me a _question?_" Kagome made absolutely no effort to hide the disbelief in her eyes. Her voice gained volume until she was shouting up at the elegant figure staring down at her.

"Even I am struck with bouts of curiosity from time to time." His shoulders lifted in a casual shrug, completely unmoved by her show of temper.

Kagome's confused frown returned. Something about the way he answered stirred an ominous feeling deep in her soul as she repeated, "Curiosity."

Naraku confirmed Kagome's suspicion with a nod. Slanting a sultry look at her through thick lashes he purred out, "I knew that without proper incentive, it might prove difficult to, ah- _encourage_ your attendance. But that no longer matters, miko, you are here. And as I have said, you may choose to answer or not as you see fit. I will still allow you to leave peacefully regardless of your decision."

Kagome's brows furrowed. She glanced at her captive friends indecisively before refocusing her attention on Naraku. Half afraid that taking her eyes off him any longer would invite disaster. When he continued to do no more than stare down at her with that same mild expression, she shook her head. Voice wavering slightly, she demanded, "Then… why do it at all? If you're only intending to let us all go so easily. What reason do you have to think I'll answer any questions you ask me? Even if I was stupid enough to believe you plan to keep your word?"

"To be fair to me, believe me when I say that I am not without some sense of my own honor," Naraku chided. He walked towards her, making a slow circle around her position with disturbingly fluid grace. After one complete course, he came to a stop standing directly behind her. Pausing to bask in sadistic pleasure the clearly-displayed rage his proximity to the human miko caused on the faces of his prisoners. "I believe one must offer a sort of trade in the midst of delicate negotiations…"

A humorless laugh escaped her as she reflexively curled her hand around the single shard in her necklace. "If you aren't willing to give up the Shikon-no-Tama, and you'll let me and my friends go without a fight… What makes you think you have anything I want?"

Naraku slipped his hands into the voluminous sleeves of his kimono and leaned forward. Brushing his chest against her back just enough to feel her instinctively flinch away from him. "Does that mean you don't want to hear my question, miko? Can you turn away from me now? Or would the thought, the question of what I want, and what I could grant you in return continue to eat away at your soul even after our paths have ceased to cross?"

Kagome shivered as the wind in the courtyard abruptly picked up. He fell silent again, allowing her own curiosity to slowly eat away at her resolve. The wind shifted, catching her hair and fanning out over her shoulders to twist and tangle among Naraku's. She lifted her hand trying to tame it down only to feel it pull uncomfortably. As though even that small part of him refused to relinquish its hold on her-

Alarmed at the path of her own thoughts, Kagome jerked her hands away. Harshly insisting, "I can forget everything about you."

"Is that why you're shaking, my dear?" He tilted his head to one side, purposefully allowing the weight of his hair to bring it spilling over his shoulder. Discreetly he manipulated his youki into mingling their hair, just to increase her discomfiture. He regarded her bent head with deepening amusement. Bringing one hand up, he traced his fingertips delicately over the joined locks in a slow caress.

Seeming to remember his rather captive audience, Naraku lifted his head and let his attention wander over her companions. There was a strangely methodic air to his perusal. His gaze was meticulous and critical as he stared them down one by one until it finally fell on Inuyasha. His eyes locked with hanyou's the longest, a cold smile playing across his borrowed face. The fear the hanyou was trying to hide behind his rage was intoxicating, and he purposefully focused on feeing it. "Can you truly resist hearing what I have to give you?"

Kagome's chin bent towards her chest to hide her face from him. Fisting her hands in front of her, she struggled to resist both the pull of his words and the urge to yank away from him. Her eyes closed, head turning slightly to the side in a subconscious gesture of defeat. But she still attempted to hide the struggle his careful words were creating inside her. "Why should I believe anything you say?"

Naraku's smile was full of triumph as he completely dismissed the others from his thoughts. He shifted his stance to have a clear view of Kagome's profile, but also conversely to block out her view of them as well should her gaze wander. "I am the one holding the control, holding all the pieces, am I not? I could have ended our fighting. Taken the shard by now and killed your companions in front of you if that was what I wanted. What other proof can I offer you, my dear?"

Kagome fell silent yet again. She hunched her shoulders in a protective gesture against the foreboding tingle that made her skin crawl. Something inside her was screaming its warning. There was more danger in this situation than she could possibly dream. And the longer she stood there in Naraku's shadow, the deeper she was falling into its grasp… but still…

She felt strangely detached. As though she was watching the scene through someone else's eyes as her lips formed another shaky question. "I don't have to answer if I don't want?"

Inuyasha jerked so forcefully against the manacles that his skin tore open, blood spattering in twin arcs into the dirt in front of him. Naraku's eyes flashed at the disruption, and he glared over his shoulder disapprovingly. His lips compressed as he reinforced their bindings. Unsatisfied, he poured a stronger layer of miasma into the barrier surrounding the battered trio. Allowing Kagome a moment with her own thoughts, he splayed the fingers of one hand at the ground and wrapped another barrier around them.

Naraku's smirk returned as he watched Inuyasha's mouth move in a soundless, furious scream. His voice blocked from reaching Kagome and possibly influencing her decision. And rendered helpless to do anything but observe and listen as Naraku so carefully played out the scene he'd orchestrated.

"You can turn and leave at any time." Naraku assured her of that option with expertly-crafted sincerity. Nodding a single time despite knowing she still refused to look at him. "There is no obligation in agreeing to hear my offer, miko. The choice is still yours alone."

Kagome hand rested over her heart again. Her gaze turned introspective as the frantic beat of her heart began to slow under a strange sense of calm. The tension across her shoulders began to melt and her other arm relaxed loosely at her side. A strange sense of warmth wrapped around her body, shielding her from the increasingly cold winds. She had no idea how long she stood there silently. Listening to the peculiarly soothing rustle of silk as the youkai's kimono fluttered in that same breeze.

But finally, her feet were moving. Turning her towards him, she demanded, "What do you want to ask me, Naraku?"

Naraku smiled benignly even as his eyes began to glow deeper scarlet in victory.

Waiting until she was fully facing him again, Naraku withdrew his hands from his sleeves with elegant precision. He saw her flinch, saw the way her jaw clenched as she forced herself to stop. She was so determined not to show him how he was affecting her. Bringing his pleasure to new heights and encouraging him to reach out and curl his fingers under her chin. Tipping her head up, he bent his head to rest his lips against the startled miko's ear.

Naraku closed his eyes, inhaling the scent of fear mingling in her deliciously pure aura. He savored the way her body trembled and sinuously wound his youki around her slight frame. Her pulse fluttered beneath his fingers as he slid them down her neck.

Lightly circling her throat with his hand, he whispered softly, "How much do you love your friends?"


	2. Tertium non Datur

Standard Disclaimer: Inuyasha and all belong to Rumiko Takahashi…

A/N: For those who don't already know, life hasn't been very good for the past three years. My latest doctor has finally come to a likely diagnosis so it's starting to get marginally better in terms of treatment, but it's still a fight to get approval all my procedures. With all of that going on, it's been hard to focus on fanfic. But I'm thinking if I can knock out the small pieces and then take on the monster, I can get everything that's still open finished and just leave it at that.

Originally, I had intended this to be a two-piece, but the path it's taken makes more sense to be split into three. So… one more left in this one.

Cabrit Sans Cors

_Tertium non datur_

"It's a simple enough question, is it not?" Naraku prodded softly when she remained silent and still.

"Don't lie to me." Kagome finally found her voice enough to grit out, jerking back away from him so quickly the edges of his nails left faint scratches on her skin. "You expect me to believe _that's _the question you brought me here to answer? You think you can trick me into thinking you actually care how I feel about my friends?"

Naraku simply arched an eyebrow. "Why not? Is it so difficult to believe I would be curious?"

"About that? Yes," Kagome returned with unflinching certainty.

"Come now, my dear," Naraku scolded lightly. "After so little time knowing of me, following me on your faith in the words of others, can you say know me so well?"

"Don't act like you're a victim of some misunderstanding." Kagome struggled to keep her lip from curling in disgust. "I've seen more than enough of you for myself to know better."

Naraku smiled at that, reaching out to brush his fingertips up her cheekbone. Kagome jerked her face away from his touch with a warning glare, drawing a low chuckle from him as he obligingly withdrew his hands. Sliding them into his sleeves, he offered her a shallow bow. "I make no excuses for who or what I am."

"Once you're exposed," she corrected with a glance toward Sango.

Naraku shifted his weight, forcing her to either step out of their line of sight or end up flush against his side. Carefully keeping the smug triumph from showing in his eyes at her predictable decision, he turned to both face her new position and effectively cut the others out.

"That may be," he agreed. "But I don't maintain the lie past that point."

"You move on to new ones." Kagome folded her arms and struggled to hide the shiver of apprehension snaking down her spine. To be the focus of his complete attention, in what could almost be mistaken for a civil discussion.

It was... ominously unsettling...

"If I followed your ideas of morality, I believe you would refer to that as adaptability to my rapidly changing environment," Naraku challenged with an amused smile.

Kagome felt a dull flush rise in her cheeks and she gritted her teeth, narrowing her eyes at him. "Don't patronize me."

"And don't misunderstand me." The smile dropped from his face and he took a step forward to loom over her, forcing her to tilt her head farther back in her efforts to appear unaffected by his proximity. "I have consistently shown my respect for you as an opponent by admitting to the deceptions you figure out. I've never denied your intelligence. If anything, I've complimented it with my actions."

The anger in her eyes changed to disbelief. "_Complimented?_"

Naraku grasped her chin in his hand too quickly for her to step away, giving her a warning squeeze when he felt her tense. "If I felt you were stupid, I wouldn't spend so much time and effort on you. And so saying, I would appreciate if you would extend me the same respect."

Kagome's hand curled around his wrist, holding his stare while their auras crackled against one another with a faint spark. "I'm here, aren't I?"

"Ah, but not out of respect for me," Naraku chided dismissively. "You came for them."

"You knew I would," Kagome returned with absolute certainty. "Don't act like it's not what you were counting on when you planned this."

Naraku's lips once again curled up in a smile, his amusement restored in the face of her accusation. His answering chuckle insidiously wound its way through her senses like a tangible thing until the muscles in her legs and arms twitched with the nearly overwhelming instinctive need to escape it. Kagome took a deep breath to stave it off, exhaling shakily as Naraku abruptly switched his hold to her neck and pivoted to stand at her side.

"There is a pattern to life," Naraku finally offered in a strangely pleasant tone. Exerting just enough pressure against her throat to turn her face towards her friends, he dipped his head mockingly toward each to further illustrate his words. "A role that every player will fill in a given situation depending on the actions they face. A certain predictability to your opponents if you have the presence of mind to watch them. Learn them."

Kagome struggled to push away from the self-made hanyou, her body contrarily rejecting her attempts despite how she felt mere seconds ago. It was his voice... Something in that voice and those words held her just as surely as if he'd restrained her like the others.

"Take yourself." Naraku's gaze lifted, casually meeting Inuyasha's furious glare. He watched impassively while the hanyou's lips curled up off his fangs to form an impressive, if entirely impotent string of threats and profanity. Barely resisting the urge to show his amusement more directly at the growing light of desperation in those inhuman eyes.

Instead, he distracted himself by reaching out and threading his fingers lightly through Kagome's hair and continued to watch his delightfully expressive captives as he spoke. "You are willing to place yourself in front of me in such a place as this. You give up your life and you give up the world beyond the well. All for them."

"How did-?!" Kagome started to twist around to face him, only to freeze when his hand tightened on her throat.

"I know?" Naraku finished, returning his attention to her pale, anxious face. "My dear, there is not a single moment that my eyes do not follow you. That I am not watching and waiting to see what you will reveal for me. I see you strip your soul bare time and again. How could you possibly doubt I would know?"

Confusion slowly pushed out her fear and she leaned back to search his face. "But if you know-? Why haven't you-? Have you tried to cross over?"

"You're a child of magic." Naraku slid his hand down Kagome's throat in a feather-light caress. "I see no reason to follow you to grounds I am unfamiliar with when you never fail to return here. And here you follow _my_ rules. You perform the way I want you to. Here you are unsure and susceptible to manipulation. I am not so foolish as to give up my advantage for the sake of simple curiosity."

Kagome opened her mouth, but closed it again when her mind failed to come up with a response for that. Her head felt like it was spinning. After all the lies, all the carefully planned and even more carefully performed tricks Naraku had forced them to suffer. He was being so... so _honest_.

"Then... If you already know the answer to your question," Kagome managed to sound mostly normal. "Why this?"

"One must know which opponent will play the part that best serves one's intentions." Naraku elegantly turned his hand to gesture toward her companions. "And you? You've played your role beautifully."

Kagome frowned, absently following his lead to stare at her friends. "I don't understand. You did this just to show you could? To show them I would do what you expected? They already knew I would-"

"Because you love them?" Naraku interrupted when she hesitated in finishing the thought.

Kagome fought to hold her composure despite the alarm those words quiet words sent snaking through her gut. Her brows furrowed and her shoulders subconsciously hunched forward in a protective motion as she answered again. "If you had any doubts of that, you never would have done this."

Naraku discreetly shifted closer until he could feel the heat from her body permeate the silk of his kimono. "Now, Kagome, I do believe you're beginning to show me that respect."

Kagome stiffened, but stubbornly held her ground. "What's the real question, Naraku?"

"It's fascinating, isn't it?" Naraku closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, savoring the way her heartbeat was racing. "The power that such an intangible thing has over the inhabitants not only of this world but the next."

Kagome's hands clenched into fists at how brazenly he ignored her demand, but she was fully aware there was no way to force him to comply before he was ready. "You think you can fool me into believing you hold anything but contempt for human emotions? For my emotions?"

Naraku tilted her head back to be absolutely certain her eyes met his and smiled with disarming candor. "I have nothing but the utmost respect for the emotion that led to my own creation."

The sudden intensity in his glowing eyes was nearly hypnotizing, seeming to freeze even the air in her lungs.

"Evil can't love… _youkai _can't love… That's what you're thinking now, isn't it?" Naraku challenged softly, barely grazing her arm with the fingertips of his free hand. "But even I am not so foolish as to repeat such lies to the ears of miko."

As much as she was loathe to show her curiosity, Kagome couldn't prevent herself from murmuring, "Why are you-? What does this have to do with why I came for my friends? That has nothing to do with this."

"Doesn't it?" Naraku dipped his head, placing his lips so close to her ear that she could feel them move against her skin. "I am never one to deny power, or my addiction to power, my dear. And I have seen so many things done under the excuse of love. Lives ruined and destroyed, worlds conquered… death overcome," he trailed off with a meaningful glance toward Inuyasha.

"_You _manipulated their feelings-!"

"I don't deny that either," Naraku cut her off again, refusing to be deterred by her outburst. "But to perfect the manipulation, Kagome, I would have to _know _the emotions I was twisting. Wouldn't I?"

Kagome shook her head in denial. "You aren't capable of love."

"My definition of 'love' does not have to be the same as your own," Naraku countered. He watched with veiled satisfaction as the involuntary curiosity slowly overtook her instinctive defensiveness, easing the tension from her muscles the more her focus drifted away his touch. Pushing his advantage, he lowered his voice and fed her uncertainty further, "Knowing that, can you truly say that I'm incapable of experiencing it in my own way? And just because it isn't the same… does it make my emotions less than yours?"

Kagome started to reply, but stopped herself. A hint of bemusement chased across her expression before she tamped it down and denied, "Love isn't self serving."

"_Your _love perhaps," Naraku specified that distinction. "But all love? You are too old for such blind naiveté, my dear. There are very few souls who can claim such a purity in their emotions. Even less who are touched by youkai blood." Naraku chuckled softly at her disbelieving expression. "Our kind are powerful and ancient. And when those powerful creatures have little care for your version of morality, they will not hesitate to remove another, perhaps softer-hearted youkai who stands in their way.

"But I digress." He lifted his head to stare thoughtfully at her companions yet again.

"What do you _want_, Naraku?" Kagome demanded in frustration. When he stayed silent, she started to glare at him again only to find his eyes narrowed coldly at the others. Even more confused at the sudden, unexpected change in his demeanor, she had barely started to think of how best to react when he gave a disgusted snort.

"They should be thanking me."

Kagome couldn't keep the disbelief out of her voice, "What?"

"They should be thanking me," Naraku repeated, his eyes losing their fury once his attention returned to her. "Without me, none of them would have ever met you."

"It wouldn't have mattered." Kagome nearly gaped in awe at his rationalization, shaking her head to reject even the possibility. "It's because of you that everything happened this way. Without you, they never would have needed to meet me. They would have had their own lives."

"But would they trade that?" Naraku asked. "Do you think they would trade knowing you?"

Kagome flashed him a tight, humorless smile. "For their happiness and a life without you? In a heartbeat."

"I think you've misunderstood me." Naraku's answering smile was dark and piercingly smug. "I asked would _they?_"

Kagome frowned sharply at the insinuation. "Of course they would."

"I think, my dear, that you do not fully appreciate the true selfishness of humanity," Naraku's tone turned patronizing. "The way the hearts of even your dear friends will twist such pure emotions."

"I think you're trying too hard to bring them to your level," Kagome retorted, bristling when he gave her a mockingly sympathetic smile.

"Lower, actually." Naraku pressed one hand to his chest in a gesture of sincerity. "I admit to my own desires while _they _hide them away and pretend to never 'suffer' from the darker side of life." He leaned in closer, bending to graze her cheek with his as he whispered, "It's in their eyes, miko, if you care to look for it. Perhaps they are not searching for me as fiercely as they could."

Kagome's head snapped around, eyes wide. "What?"

"They hope to keep you," Naraku continued as though she hadn't spoken. "Every day I survive is another day that you remain by their sides."

"I won't listen to this," Kagome refused, shaking her head in vehement denial.

"They're willing to die for you. When they've proven that so often, can you honestly think they would do any less if it meant keeping you here with them?" Naraku delighted in the chill that raced down her spine, wrapping his arm around her back to trace his fingertips just above the skin and absorb its lingering effect in her aura. "And you… Do you love them enough to give up everything?"

"Nara-"

"The monk will die," Naraku interrupted, his voice strangely lacking its usual cruelty. Despite the harsh words, he delivered them for what they were, nothing more than a blunt truth.

Kagome tried to answer much the same way, almost able to keep to tremor from her voice, "Because of you."

"It could be argued that his grandfather holds the fault for originally crossing me," Naraku offered the alternative perspective to the particular story. "I was merely defending myself against a hostile force. And as such, the monk is merely suffering from the actions of his ancestor."

Kagome gave a short, disgusted laugh at his defense. "The one who placed the curse is still you."

"In that, yes. The blame is indeed entirely my own," Naraku acknowledged shamelessly. "But tell me, Kagome. If I was to… remove _my_ aspect of that equation, in exchange for something even more satisfying than the death of that bothersome line. What would it be worth?"

The words hung in the air between them as absolute silence descended on the courtyard.

Kagome felt the blood drain from her face as her mind reeled with the implications of that question. Her eyes searched his face almost desperately for a sign that he really was offering what he suggested even as she damned herself for showing him that hope.

At the level, perfectly solemn stare he graced her with, Kagome shook her head and forced out, "Why?"

"In that, I can prove to you that my intentions are more honest." Naraku let his palm rest on the small of her back, smiling at how badly she jumped at the touch this time. She'd barely taken a half-step away from him when he disrupted the reflexive escape attempt by adding, "Without such an immediate threat hanging over their heads, how seriously do you think they will hunt for me?"

"You're underestimating them." Kagome struggled to recover her scattered wits, gritting her teeth as she fought to remain outwardly steady despite the way her heart raced. "Nothing would change."

Naraku chuckled softly and stroked his hand up her spine once before returning to its previous position. "I think, my dear, that you still have so very much to learn about human nature."

Kagome stared defiantly up into his eyes and insisted, "I know my friends."

Naraku took another step forward, purposefully curling his jyaki up her sides just close enough to tug at her clothes and tease the air above her skin. His hand sunk into her hair, gently turning her face up until she was staring straight up at him. "Are you so certain of that?"

Kagome started to lean back, only to halt that motion when it only brought her head fully into the palm of his hand. She instinctively closed her eyes and swallowed hard at the shiver of revulsion, snapping them open in alarm when Naraku brushed a lingering stroke against her scalp with his thumb.

Almost before she'd realized she'd moved, she grabbed his arm to halt the disturbing caress. Digging her nails into his skin, she whispered harshly and precisely, "They aren't you."

Naraku cupped her chin in his other hand, countering just as quietly, "And they aren't _you_."

Kagome was taken aback by the seriousness in his eyes and voice, brows furrowed as she struggled to figure out what he meant by that.

Naraku dragged the backs of his fingers up her cheekbone, more assured she would tolerate it this time given the altered circumstances. "Have you ever stopped to consider that out of all your friends, the only one who has ever truly had the depth of their devotion tested time and again is you?"

"That isn't-"

Naraku pressed a finger to her lips to stop her. "This is not your fight, Kagome."

Kagome jerked her head back harder to shake off the unwelcome gesture and released the arm still holding her hair in favor of grabbing the one so close to her face. "You made it my fight."

Naraku clucked his tongue in disapproval, shaking his head to deny that responsibility. "Now, now, my dear. Think back before you go about accusing me of something so serious," he patiently scolded. "Before you repeat what you've heard so often from your beloved friends."

"It's the truth."

"Is it?" Naraku challenged.

"None of this would have happened if not for you," Kagome hissed in mounting frustration. "Inuyasha and Kikyou, Miroku, Sango- it's all because of you!"

"I could just as easily say that it's because of them," Naraku pointed out. "If Kikyou had never tended to Onigumo, if she and Inuyasha had trusted each other, if the monk's grandfather had never crossed me, if the taijiya had seen through my trap earlier... How many excuses do you want to hear? This is their world, miko, their time. This is the way of life as they've always known and accepted it to be."

"It doesn't change anything." Kagome dug her nails deeper into his wrist.

"Not for them," Naraku agreed easily. "But what about you?"

Kagome shrugged, not following his logic. "What about me?"

"This." Naraku gestured as expansively toward the surrounding landscape as her stubborn grip allowed. "This was not you." Turning back to capture her in a particularly piercing stare, the fingers in her hair curled into a loose fist. "Not until they made it yours. The hanyou, the kitsune, the monk, the taijiya. All so eager to draw you in to a fight that was never yours, to keep you here at their sides because they couldn't bear to let you go."

"I broke the jewel," Kagome reminded him. "If I hadn't-"

"And if Inuyasha had been more vigilant, there would never have been a chance for it to be broken," Naraku stopped her from laying blame on herself further and slanted a sly look at the hanyou. "_He _knew the jewel, the draw it held for youkai, not you. And yet he allowed you to go off alone, to be captured. Then fed your guilt with accusations to manipulate you into staying to fight his battles, chase _his _dreams. Never caring that you left your life behind just for him, just for a hanyou who tried to kill you."

Kagome opened her mouth but closed again when her voice failed her.

"As the others joined, did they ever once doubt you would return?" Naraku released her hair to slide his hand down the back of her neck and rest his thumb over the violently beating pulse-point in her throat. "Did any one of them ever think your life as important as theirs? Telling you their tragedies in secret whispers, basking in the sympathy and love you gave them without judgment, without question. Each one playing on that same guilt Inuyasha so carefully cultivated until there was no doubt that your heart and soul belonged to them."

"It wasn't like that," Kagome hesitated at the waver even she could hear and took a deep breath to restore her control. "Inuyasha tried to send me back."

"Ah yes..." Naraku's smile regained the patronizingly edge. "Once, wasn't it? And with all his strength, all his capacity for destruction, his best effort to seal you in the place he knew was your own and stop you from returning here was a _tree_."

At the naked shock on Kagome's face, Naraku clucked his tongue and feathered his thumb across the taut muscle of her neck. "I told you, my dear, there was never a time when my eyes weren't watching."

Kagome stared at him, light-headed and faintly sick with realization.

"Inuyasha lifted it easily even when he'd been gravely wounded," Naraku pointed out with obvious derision. "How much of a deterrent could such a thing possibly be? Or did he even intend for it to be one in the first place?" He carefully tilted his head in a way that sent his hair slithering down his chest and brushing against her exposed collarbone in its descent. "Your quest has become infinitely more dangerous since that day; has there been even one more attempt to send you away? To save you from the war they so willingly forced you to join?"

Kagome's eyes slid away from his, unable to meet the mockery in his gaze. "They respect that I made my choice."

"Or maybe," Naraku drawled out as he slid the tip of his forefinger around to the hollow of her throat, "they understood that the only way to truly hold you was to force you to make that decision. You're traveling with warriors and thieves, my dear. Do you really think them incapable of devising a plan in regards to something so important to them?"

"I think you're so desperate to make me believe they're capable of your type of deception that you're willing to say anything," Kagome spat out in disgust.

Naraku's laughter was filled with genuine amusement, "Couldn't I say the same for you? So determined to believe your friends would never suffer from such selfish thoughts that you're willing to overlook what's right before your eyes?"

Kagome knocked his hand away from her throat with the back of her hand and warned softly, "You aren't going to convince me."

"No." Naraku turned his hand to catch her wrist, pressing his fingertips over the pale blue veins visible beneath her smooth skin. Ignoring her attempts to tug her wrist free, he lifted her arm higher until his lips were hovering just above that same spot. "With all that beautiful loyalty you waste on them, I don't suppose I could."

"Stop it," Kagome hissed.

Naraku's hold tightened until Kagome's fingers involuntarily curled into a fist. "How many times will they demand you prove your devotion? How much of yourself will it take before it's enough?"

Anxiety shivered down her spine at the ominous note in his voice, and she pulled against the hand holding her wrist dangerously close to his mouth. Her heart sounded abnormally loud in her ears as he pulled her off balance, forcing her to step forward on her own or risk falling against his chest.

"What do you feel for me?"

Kagome's eyes snapped to his face.

Holding her gaze without the slightest hint of his earlier laughter, Naraku pressed for an answer, "Does it compare?"

Kagome shook her head in disbelief, unable to stop the way her lip curled in disgust at even the thought of such a thing. "You're a parasite, Naraku. And you aren't worth that much of me."

Naraku smiled warmly at the raw emotion in her reply and grazed his teeth over her knuckles. Chuckling at the way the skin turned bone white with how tightly she squeezed her fist in response, he couldn't resist dragging the fingers of his other hand up the length of her captured arm.

"Does that mean," he purred silkily, "they would be worth everything? Ah-!" He preemptively interrupted before his words had even sunk in, brows rising as though he had only just recalled what he wanted to say. "That would be the reason you're here after all."

Kagome refused to rise to the bait in his taunt. "Something like you can't possibly understand."

"I wouldn't be entirely that hasty," Naraku's voice lowered dramatically, every hint of humor or play leeching from his eyes. He unblinkingly watched her pupils dilate and her breath catch at the dangerous shift and lifted her arm high enough to brush her breasts against his kimono. Returning his other hand to the back of her neck, he applied just enough pressure to prevent her from moving away.

"Would I place myself in the hands of my enemy this way?" Naraku subtly shook his head for emphasis. "Never. It's not my nature. However-" he trailed off momentarily, staring into her in a way that made her feel stripped to the soul. "Don't mistake how _I _feel, or how very much I understand how you do as well.

"You said it yourself, my dear," he taunted. "That's why I picked you."

Every ounce of her concentration went into holding herself still, breathing through her mouth as deeply as she could without unintentionally brushing her chest against his. Determined to see whatever this was through and get them out of here without letting Naraku see her crack, she repeated, "Any of us would have come for the others."

Naraku let out an exaggerated sigh and scolded, "Don't be so humble, Kagome."

"It's not being humble when they feel the same way," Kagome returned defensively.

"Oh?" Naraku drew the inquisitive sound out much longer than necessary. "Out of everyone your path has crossed, I am the only one who could possibly understand you. Who appreciates what you're capable of doing for them, enduring for them." Leaning closer, he pitched his words to a conspiratorial whisper, "Trust that it is quite predictably different."

Kagome flinched when the hand on her neck rose to stroke her hair, and Naraku squeezed her wrist to remind her of the precariousness of her position. He made a soft, soothing hum in the back of his throat while he continued to slide his fingers from the top of her head to the small of her back. Resting his cheek against her temple, Naraku purred, "Even now, just the thought that I have something to offer you to benefit their welfare is enough to hold you docile in my arms."

Kagome turned her head to put enough distance between them to break contact, biting down on the side of her tongue when he easily followed to keep it. Closing her eyes, she insisted, "They would do the same for me."

"Would they?" Naraku absently trailed his fingertips down the back of her neck and moved away enough to look at her face again. "No," he chuckled softly, "you don't believe that." His lips barely curved up at the corner as he brushed his thumb down the line of her jaw and regarded her through half-lidded eyes. "You know them as well as I do, my dear. You're fully aware they would have come with the intent to fight, to die telling themselves they were doing it for you. Even in that, their love is selfish."

Kagome lifted her chin away from him. "I would die for them too."

"Dying is far too easy to be worth the meaning you give it." Naraku's smile took on a wicked edge, and he cupped her cheek in his hand before she could retreat too far. "It's infinitely more difficult to live for them the way you do."

"What do you _want_, Naraku?" Kagome glared up at him. "If you don't want to kill me, and you don't want to kill them, what's left?"

Naraku stared down at her face in silence for so long that Kagome's frustration fueled bravado seeped away under a nearly oppressive sense of foreboding. His eyes gleamed darkly as the wind shifted with his jyaki, dramatically fanning his hair out behind him as he straightened his spine. "I've already told you that I'm curious."

Kagome shivered, instinctively curling herself further inward to avoid the increased brush of his clothes against her exposed skin as much as possible, but unable to tear her eyes away.

"To be the focus of that kind of love, my dear." He traced his thumb under her lower lip in a languid caress. "You've presented me the rare opportunity to assuage my curiosity, and I'm fully prepared to barter my services."

"Services?" Kagome repeated numbly.

"The monk's curse." Naraku took another step forward and pulled to more than make up for her attempted retreat, bringing her flush against him from breast to hip before finishing the terms of his deal. "In exchange for that love."

"For-?" Kagome stared at him in horrified incredulity before she shook her head fiercely and denied, "You can't just turn it on like that! It isn't something you-!"

"Pretend," Naraku calmly pressed a finger to her lips to halt her stumbling excuses. "Until morning."

Kagome inhaled sharply as the meaning behind those words sunk in.

"You focus every last part of you that loves them onto me." Naraku dragged his finger down the center line of her throat and farther until it rested at the neckline of her shirt. Subtly, he slid his fingertip back and forth across the hem of the fabric, grazing the skin beneath with each pass. "Show me everything in you capable of those emotions. You give them to me, and I'll give you his life."

"This-" Kagome let out a humorless laugh, lips twisting in derision as she murmured in a subdued voice. "You just wanted sex?"

"You weren't listening." Naraku tsked in disapproval at her interpretation, squeezing her wrist, and brushing it against his cheek. "If all I wanted was sex, I wouldn't have gone to all the trouble of arranging these... special negotiations. And it never would have warranted something as valuable in trade as the removal of the monk's curse."

Renewed confusion wiped the anger from her face all over again. "Then what-?"

"What I want, my dear, is for you to give _me_ the full focus of those emotions." Naraku curled his knuckles below her jaw, tracing it up to her ear, and down the line of her throat with meticulous precision. "I want you to show me the way you would give every part of yourself; your heart, your soul, your entire being... How would you give all of that to a most treasured lover?"

Naraku gently nudged at her chin up until she was right back to staring straight into the glowing scarlet of his eyes. "I want you to make me believe the one you love is me."

Kagome's lips trembled faintly when her lips parted and her voice wavered when she finally managed to ask, "And... and if I say I can't?"

He gently squeezed her chin and gave a soft snort of laughter before he answered thoughtfully, "Then I suppose I would have to admit that I misjudged the depth of your devotion."

Kagome's jaw clenched until the muscle in her cheek spasmed at the strain.

"Either way, you may leave without fear of my retribution," Naraku promised in the same mild tone. "But if you leave, would your decision haunt you? The more time passes and the void consumes him, could you live with knowing you could have saved him that fate?"

Naraku lapsed into silence, perfectly content to bask in the miko's scrutiny and watch the gamut of emotions chase through those wide, expressive eyes. She had no idea just how easy it was to read every step of her internal struggle. And just how easy it was to predict how it would end.

Finally, Kagome dropped her gaze to avoid his eyes completely and demanded tightly, "How do I know you won't curse him again?"

Naraku's answering smile radiated arrogant satisfaction. "Because, my dear, from the moment I remove the void to the day the last of your companions dies, you will remember." His hand traced the curve of her cheek almost tenderly. "Every step, every breath, they will think of me, imagine me having you until it consumes their thoughts. Until their imagination provides them with a fantasy a thousand times worse than the reality. Until the guilt seeps so deeply into their being that it fills their very bones."

Kagome stared up at him, her lips twisting in a bitter smile. "When you say it like that, I can believe you'd actually keep your promise."

"In my lifetimes, I have learned that sometimes the truth will cut deeper than any lie."

"And that suits you," Kagome murmured in undisguised contempt.

He dipped his head in silent accord. "It would be far too easy for them if I broke the bargain. The hate and anger they directed at me would be no different from what I already have of them. They would ease their guilt and their minds by telling themselves I had taken advantage of your nature and repaid you with my usual lies. And in time they might even forget you tried to buy his life with your body."

Kagome closed her eyes, involuntarily gritting her teeth in revulsion.

"This way," Naraku continued undaunted. "This way, my dear, I will be a man of my word. And in that, their suffering will follow them into their afterlife."

"You really are the most sadistic bastard that ever lived," Kagome whispered.

Naraku smiled and grasped her chin again, this time turning her face to look directly at Miroku. "Do you have my answer, Kagome? Do you love him, your dear friend, enough to take me into yourself? Could you pretend to love me until dawn to see him safe from the curse that haunts his every breath? That has already taken two generations of his family?"

Kagome felt the burn of unshed tears sting the back of her throat the longer she watched him. Unable to voice a single thought as she stared at Miroku's haunted eyes. The normally serene violet had turned dark, visibly fearful with aching pain and uncertainty...

Naraku brought his hands to rest gently on her shoulders, tugging her back against his chest. He brought his mouth to her ear and looked directly into the monk's eyes as he questioned, "He would never ask you to do this for him, would he?"

"No," Kagome answered without hesitation.

Naraku watched with undisguised pleasure as an entirely new array of emotions chased through those violet eyes. He pitched his voice just loud enough to carry to their human ears and let his lips graze Kagome's skin with every word. "Could you face him? Day after day?"

Scarlet eyes glittered with wicked pleasure at the sudden spike in fear that cut through the air within his carefully constructed barrier. It was difficult, but he resisted the urge to look away and possibly break the thrall of the moment. Far more interested in waiting for the exact moment Kagome's thoughts reached the inevitable outcome.

_They_ already knew the answer.

Basking in the intoxicating force of their combined tension, he murmured for her ears alone, "Could you face yourself?"

Kagome stared across the courtyard, distantly feeling her fingernails bite into her own palms. Pale and grim-faced, with his jaw clenched and his eyes so very tortured that she couldn't bring herself to look away, Miroku slowly shook his head in silent denial.

Closing her eyes, Kagome turned her face away from her friends.

"If I do this-" Kagome's voice broke. Swallowing hard, she straightened her spine and exhaled a shaky breath before starting again. This time, despite the near silence of her words, her voice held nothing but resolute determination, "If I agree, you have to promise me it will last forever."

Naraku's smile widened as Miroku's eyes instantly clenched shut, his body going completely lax until the restraints were the only things supporting his weight. He relished the agony he could feel violently tainting the air all around the holy man, soaking in the desperation and hopeless fury.

He stared at each of his captives in turn, memorizing every single emotion that colored their eyes in that singularly beautiful moment.

Fully satisfied, Naraku finally dismissed them in favor of giving Kagome his complete, utterly undivided attention.

"Oh, my precious miko," the deliberately melodic tones of his voice were thick with dark finality. He slid both hands up the sides of Kagome's neck and brushed his thumbs down either side of her spine as he assured her, "If there is any one thing you have no need to fear, it's that I would ever promise you anything less."


End file.
